


to become a painting

by Voidromeda



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Experimental Style, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-19 01:14:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22169515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voidromeda/pseuds/Voidromeda
Summary: Deimos is like a dirty canvas - unusable, but never thrown away.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 5, Page 128 made me really happy. I love Deimos.

Smokescreen and mirrors form the world, each glass shinier than the next – perfect reflections align, all of them displaying beauty and decadence that trickery soon paints over. One lone mirror stands cracked in the middle of them all, distorting the countenance of a small boy too young to understand right from wrong – violence bubbles beneath his alabaster skin, and pops to form rivers of blood beneath his eyes. His eyelids peel backwards, wiping away the sleepy look upon his expression.

Ache dances on ache, worsening it to untold pain – fear breaks through the cracks in the mirror. He plays his palm on the surface, presses down, and then swipes hard to the side.

Red paints the canvas.

Deimos stops being an artist a long time ago.


	2. Chapter 2

Chipped teeth are meant to line the gums of Martian slaves, broken noses mar expressions – swollen cheeks and twitchy fingers. They are all telltale signs of being a Martian, becoming almost as much a genetic lineage as having hair is. Women undergo work enforced surgery to perform better, and those who aren’t labourers suffer the worst of it. Men as beautiful as women suffer the same fate, and those who are neither are not seen again. Cain sports broken noses and bleeding knuckles like a fashion statement, and shuffles aboard the ship to his new military life with bruised bones and torn skin.

Rivers of blood paint Deimos’ back as his appeal to be aboard the same ship as Cain is miraculously heard; obligation takes him away from whips and ropes and shove him, instead, into the prison of the stars.

Misery replaces isolation as his company.


	3. Chapter 3

Smoke blows out from between chapped lips, a contraband flask of vodka sits in his free hand, and a grin paints his ashen face when he says, “s’really you, huh, Deimos?” he rises as slow as a snake and swaggers as leisurely as a panther towards him, bending down so that his tobacco breath caresses Deimos’ face and stains his eyes. “As beautiful as ever. Guess the bastards couldn’t gut you open, huh?” he takes a deep drag of his cigar and blows smog all over his face, forcing him to close his eyes, and Deimos gasps when the taste of smoke overtakes him.

Cain kisses him with teeth and tongue, sinking sharp canines in to leave a mark behind. He lets him, though he knows that that too will fade from his skin; Cain never renews them.

“Just as pretty as ever, and just as mine as ever, huh?”


	4. Chapter 4

Privilege makes the navigators extremely chatty – snow-white skin glow like the sun as they speak, cheeks flushing molten hot as they flirt and talk and laugh. Some of them are boisterous in ways fighters aren’t, hiding behind venomous words or empty flattery. Some are genuine. Their light fades the moment the world dawns down on them and bears, heavy, upon their fragile spines. Deimos has a long time to his own back, has endured more than Cain ever will. More than these navigators ever will.

All of his navigators find him unsettling, unwelcoming – _a man dying from his own self-pity._ The newest one hates him, but tolerates him better than his previous; as long as Deimos keeps his head down and doesn’t acknowledge his navigator, then Phobos won’t deign it necessary to bother him.

Theirs is an easy alliance.


	5. Chapter 5

‘Love’ is too nebulous for Cain, ‘love’ doesn’t exist for him, ‘love’ is what he refuses to say to people even as a means to get what he wants. Of course Deimos knows this. Vile as the other may be, Deimos’ heart never aches when Cain chokes him while he takes what he wants, never tightens or stings when Cain goes and chases after other men to fill his bed with, and never bursts when Cain marks his rotating navigators. Everyone is the same to Cain.


	6. Chapter 6

Fresh blood joins the ship – a navigator who speaks less often than the others, jittering and shaking and trembling with nerves set alight yet still he carries himself with the same innate arrogance as the other navigators. He looks at Deimos as though he is a rat in a maze of dead ends, disturbed and frightened of him in spite of his inability to do anything to Abel. Cain tells him with blackened heart, crooked nose, and wild, big eyes to follow Abel and to make sure he isn’t doing anything that he doesn’t want him to.

His knife rests, heavy and unused, on his palm. Cain swipes it from him, twirls and dances it between scratched, scarred fingers, and spins it until he points the blade at Deimos.

“Remember when you used t’paint?” Cain asks, giving him a Cheshire grin. “Wanna be a canvas?”


	7. Chapter 7

Praxis doesn’t know his place. He sees Deimos with blood on his clothes and shallow wounds all over; mindless and meaningless injuries cover him, an experimentation to see how far he can go. Always, always pushing harder, further. Praxis sees them when he isn’t careful, when he is tired and wanting only to go back to sleep and to ignore the world around him – a feeling rare and unwanted, but still existing nonetheless. He knows immediately who they are from.

Their encounter after Praxis’ realisation does not go well.


	8. Chapter 8

Gentle, unharmed hands clean his wounds. Ethos, as lovely as a lamb but as rough as a ram, wipes clean his injuries and keeps them from infection – alcohol rubs and itches, standing awkward next to the _whip, crack, whip, crack, split_ of the older scars. He remains unresponsive and Ethos doesn’t apologise for any discomfort he causes – Deimos will not acknowledge them, either way.

A kiss caresses his shoulder. Clean clothes are given to him without comment. Ethos leaves without saying goodbye.

Flowers bloom beneath each step of Ethos’ feet.


	9. Chapter 9

Cain doesn’t speak to him as often. Cain doesn’t bother him about Abel. Cain still finds him, shoves his face against the wall, and uses him.

White lilies are nothing without the gentle water to support them.

Beauty is often skin deep – his beauty, however, lives underneath and within the pulsing, overworked muscles.

Even Cain desires diversity.


	10. Chapter 10

“Feel like m’gonna make a mistake soon.” Cain says while he sits next to Deimos. Lips chapped, lungs bellowing with tobacco and belly sloshing with alcohol, Cain ponders while he swings his free arm around Deimos’ shoulder, holding him close and possessive. “Feel like we’re all gonna make big mistakes soon. ‘cept you. You never do anythin’. Never do.”


	11. Chapter 11

Deimos gets caught. A mutiny breaks out. Ethos saves him from it.

Abel and Cain are gone.

But when has that mattered to Deimos?

He is the one who pulls the trigger behind Cook’s head when he lashes out and tries to kill Phobos, and he is the one who stains his palms red.

Even with Cain gone, he remains a canvas.

But Deimos is no longer a painter.


End file.
